Combating hate will be focus of MLK talk by former violent extremist Jan. 24

Keynote speaker Sammy Rangel will speak Wednesday, Jan. 24, at Ripon College as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Week observance on campus. Rangel, co-founder and executive director of the organization Life After Hate, will highlight best practices and current strategies for working through hate.

His presentation, “In the Face of Hate,” will begin at 7 p.m. in Great Hall, Harwood Memorial Union..

Life After Hate Inc. is a nonprofit organization founded and run by former violent extremists. Its core services stem from the foundation of its members’ reformed ideologies and decades of rare experiential immersion within some of the world’s most violent extremist organizations.

Life After Hate works in the Countering Violent Extremism field, offering outreach, consulting, interventions and support systems for individuals who have successfully disengaged from violent extremism.

Rangel will highlight extraordinary cases of compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation; and explore how to identify and review counterproductive narratives and replace them with productive counter narratives. These counter narratives will both affect and improve the care givers as well as the people they are trying to serve. Through various narrative changes, developing a counter narrative will make the impossible seem possible and produce the outcomes most interventions seek.